LONDON, Feb 6: A hapless visitor who accidentally smashed a set of rare 300-year-old Chinese vases at a British museum after tripping up on his shoelaces said on Monday he had been banned from returning.

Nick Flynn, a regular visitor of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, southeast England, told BBC radio he has received a letter from directors asking him not to come back — at least for a while.

The 42-year-old, who tripped as he came down a flight of stairs, causing the 100,000-pound mishap, said: “It was just a regrettable accident.

“I snagged my shoelace, missed the step and crash, bang, wallop there were a million pieces of high-quality Qing ceramics lying around underneath me.

“I suppose that, seeing they were the prize possession of the museum, they were just lying on a window sill... I thought they might take a bit better care of them.”

The three Qing vases, dating from the late 17th or early 18th century, had been at the museum for at least 40 years.

After receiving the banning letter from museum director Duncan Robinson, Flynn said: “I think they are a bit embarrassed at the moment, with them being worth such a considerable amount, and there is no way my pocket will stretch to reimburse them for the damage I’ve done.”

“I think this is just the directors or trustees because they seem to have got egg on their faces,” he suggested.

Police have ruled out malicious damage. —AFP